


Coffee

by Jain



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 1, Community: purimgifts, Gen, POV Third Person, Past Tense, Podfic Available
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-21
Updated: 2013-02-21
Packaged: 2017-12-03 04:55:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/694397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jain/pseuds/Jain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pepper's first hour as Tony's PA.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coffee

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Arsenic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/gifts).



Even if Tony Stark's peccadillos weren't constantly emblazoned across every American entertainment site and gossip magazine, Pepper was sure she'd have realized at first meeting that the man wasn't the type to respect boundaries. Still, her predecessor's handover notes included the line, _Mr. Stark's never up before eleven a.m. unless he's jetlagged or hasn't gone to bed yet,_ so Pepper forgave herself for being startled when she pushed open the door to the private kitchen attached to her office and found Tony Stark sprawled heavily--and half-nakedly--across the table.

At least his eyes were closed so he couldn't see her jump. "Mr. Stark?" she said after her heart had resumed beating.

He blinked at her a couple of times, then let his eyes close again. "Regina," he said. "No. Victoria?"

"Virginia," she corrected. "Potts."

"Right. That."

"Did you need something, Mr. Stark?" The words came out more sharply than she'd intended; Tony didn't seem to notice.

"Coffee," he said and waved a hand at the coffee pot on the counter, the mostly full mug resting two inches from his nose.

"You don't have coffee in your own office? Or in your lab?"

"I ran out."

There was a long silence in which Tony courted scalds and/or drowning by attempting to pour coffee into his mouth without lifting his head from the table. Finally, Pepper said, more out of morbid curiosity than anything else, "Would you like some pants, Mr. Stark?"

"Huh?" Tony said. He set the coffee mug down and tilted his head to peer through the glass tabletop at his naked lap. "Oh, hey. I wonder when that happened." His sense of wonder didn't seem to last very long, and his eyes drifted shut once more. "Nah, don't bother. This isn't working." He shoved the mug away from himself. "I'm just gonna go to bed."

The tour Pepper had gotten the previous day had revealed that Tony had a small but more than adequate bedroom attached to his private lab, so his statement probably (hopefully) didn't indicate that he was about to go inflict his bare ass--and bare other body parts--on the unsuspecting public. Still, that didn't mean that Pepper was comfortable with the idea of her new boss leaving _her office_ half-naked, no matter that his other employees were undoubtedly accustomed to Tony's behavior.

Fortunately, he didn't seem to be going anywhere, despite his words. His situation was looking less and less like the result of a single night's missed sleep, and she found herself wondering if he'd been entirely compos mentis when he'd hired her the previous day. On the plus side, if he fired her tomorrow, all of the paperwork she'd signed yesterday would guarantee her a nice chunk of severance pay.

"It's no bother," she said.

As if on cue, there was a rap on her office door. Pepper went to answer it.

Happy Hogan (Pepper didn't know his real first name), who'd been introduced to her as Tony's chauffeur, but whose primary job, she suspected, was "fixer of Tony's life," stood on the other side. He held pants, socks, and underwear in one hand, shoes in the other.

"He's still wearing his socks and shoes," she said. "It's just the pants and underwear that are missing. Sorry, I should've been more specific."

"No problem," Happy said. "You want me to take care of this?" He gestured with the pants in demonstration.

"If you would."

Happy nodded agreeably and headed into the kitchen.

Pepper sat at her desk and busied herself with deleting the most recent text message in her cellphone, sent as soon as it had become obvious that Tony's half-naked presence in her office was due to his being mentally impaired and not to criminal intent on his part: "Mr. Stark experiencing a clothing emergency in my office kitchen. Please bring pants."

Then she called _her_ assistant. "Deirdre? I need you to go to the coffee shop on the corner and get me the biggest latte they sell. Buy yourself something, too, my treat."

This was definitely going to be a three coffee day, and Pepper had no plans to use her kitchen again until after the maids had gotten to it.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Coffee](https://archiveofourown.org/works/744717) by [Jain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jain/pseuds/Jain), [sisi_rambles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sisi_rambles/pseuds/sisi_rambles)




End file.
